Dusted
by Tuesday Too
Summary: Dean wakes up to his knees against cracked asphalt, his lungs burning from dust. There are only three points of color in this picture: Muted blue sky. Green-gray scrub. And blood-red crazy of not-Sam.


_**A/N**_ _: A huge thank you to hollyhobbit101 for betaing this and for all her amazing support! Also, she's written some awesome fic, including season 12 tags, that you should totally check out._

 _I started this for ohsam's triple play in November, but had to table it for awhile because life. Thanks to Lennelle for the lovely prompt: 1) A road through the middle of nowhere 2) Dean 3) "You're not the real Sam." Hope you enjoy!_

 _Nebulously set sometime post-s2._

* * *

 **Dusted**

Dean wakes up to his knees against cracked asphalt, his lungs burning from dust. There are only three points of color in this picture: Muted blue sky. Green-gray scrub. And blood-red crazy of not-Sam.

He glares blearily up at the blurry figure splattered in Dean's blood. "You're not the real Sam."

Not-Sam doesn't say anything, just frowns like he got a mouthful of crappy coffee and keeps reading from a dusty hardback. Dean squints, pulls the world into focus. A spell?

A crumpled piece of notebook paper flaps against the wind, clutched beneath not-Sam's fingers against his armful of weighty old tomes. "You a geek too?" Dean quips, trying to get a rise.

Not-Sam's nose and forehead scrunch a little tighter, like Dean's the thing that's wrong thing in this picture, not his brother's mimic who's got a jar of Dean's blood at his feet.

He shifts, testing his bound hands. It's just rope, and Dean's not even tied down to anything, but not-Sam has all the knot-tying skills and reflexes of Dean's brother. He's already tested his chances at a great escape. (And dumped a jar of his blood down not-Sam's front. Not-Sam had to refill.)

He'd say the middle of the road is a bad spot for a blood sacrifice or whatever the hell not-Sam is attempting, but in Sam-style, this son of a bitch has done his homework. There isn't a car in sight.

Nothing but dust and sky and an empty road with his not-brother now chanting eerily in the background. The latin seeps into his ears, filling his head with soupy static, and the ground starts to spin. Dean quickly looks to not-Sam, alarmed. Except now the ground is firm and it's the cloudless blue sky that's spinning, spinning, spinning in Dean's eyes.

Not-Sam's muttering something to himself, then to Dean. "Just hang tight. Almost there, Dean."

Yeah, Dean's friggin thrilled about hanging tight, he just can't wait to find out what not-Sam's almost done. He swallows against the spinning. Ugh. He'd tell him as much too if he wasn't so sure that was gonna end in him puking.

Not-Sam crouches down and picks up the jar of Dean's blood, though his face never turns away. No chance for escape. His fingertips dip in, trace sticky red patterns on his arms.

"What did you do to my brother, you sick freak?" Dean grinds out, predictably receiving no answer.

Not-Sam's fingers stretch toward Dean and he jerks back. "Don't move," not-Sam says, no negotiation. Dean can't really stop him.

He tries to let his mind float far away from here, join the not-present clouds, but the blood not-Sam paints on his arms feels like it's being drawn from his skin in itchy, hot trails. The lines stretch slowly across his arms, carefully around the cuts where not-Sam drew blood, until finally, finally, not-Sam's hand moves away, then up.

The thumb streak across his forehead leaves colors bursting behind his eyelids. Blue, green-gray, and blood-red go from muted to over-saturated. He crushes his eyes shut, but then he just spins in the darkness until he can't breathe cause he's falling, everything rushing by—

"Dean." Not-Sam again. So _now_ he wants to talk.

There's ringing in his ears and something's clawing up inside his throat. His eyes reopen to the blurry bright colors and when the world tilts, the sky's dark and filled with stars.

"Dean, can you hear me?"

Dean can hear just fine, he just doesn't feel like answering not-Sam, thank you very much. Kinda busy keep everything together while this damn spell splits him apart.

A hand reaches for his arm again but this time Dean's ready. His forehead rams forward into not-Sam's and the explosion inside his head makes everything brighter, hotter, and somehow clearer. His not-brother is staggering back while Dean twists around, shoulder to not-Sam's chest, knee to the gut. He hears a grunt, and his not-brother's spinning, Dean's spinning, and he drives a hard kick to the back of the knees. Sam drops like a rock.

Glinting. Not-Sam must have gone for his knife and lost because silver's glinting against the ground. Dean grabs for it, dropping and half-blindly reaching out in front of him, stretching against bound fingers. It's cold and sharp in his hand and he saws hastily between his wrists, rope dropping away, dripping red.

His knife turns to not-Sam who tries to break out the little brother tactics while he staggers to his feet. "Dean. Dean, man, don't. It's Sam, okay? Take it easy. Stand down, Dean."

They'd be a little more effective if this was really his little brother. No one gets to twist Sammy like that. With a growl, he strikes forward, then is repelled by a hasty block. He hits again, harder, faster, and he and not-Sam are a mess of limbs and blocks until his knife goes home then his fist and Sam drops into the dust.

But apparently someone kicked Dean's knees out too because suddenly he's kneeling, choking on dust, close enough to hear Not-Sam's whispering chant, finishing the spell.

Stupid too-smart not-Sam.

His chest fills up with dust and and the colors blur until the world drops out in white.

* * *

He wakes up feeling like he took a dirt bath and went a couple rounds with a juiced up vamp, but to a steady world. A shudder goes through his body and that makes the cuts on his arm sting and he realizes there are gaping gray gaps in his brain. His eyes drift through the sky, nothing but muted blue, until they reach the blur of blood-red and little brother, pushing himself to his knees.

A groan. "Urrughh… Dean?"

He stares at the figure, willing it to make sense. This isn't — He didn't — His brain can't catch up. It's Sam, and it's the same guy, but somehow he _knows_ it's not, knows this is his brother, Dean's blood traced in loops and symbols around his arms and sloppily across his face, running down into one eye. A hand's pulled across his chest, smeared red underneath, brighter against the dried blood down his front, and he realizes suddenly Sam's swaying on his knees while Dean's flat out on his back.

He surges upward, suddenly a flurry of action as Sam stills, suspended in movement except for his eyes, tracking Dean. "Sam, what—?" His stomach's dropping out because he remembers the ritual, the blood, swinging his knife at (not?-)Sam, feeling sure the figure of his brother was evil, some sort of monster he had to take down.

But now he's not so sure. He's on his feet, but he still feels wrong-footed, bracing his body against the guy — danger? brother?— slouched in front of him while his heart thwacks hard enough to make his chest ache. "What happened?"

"Dean, it's me." Heavy breathing. "It was a curse, okay?" The pause is so long he thinks Sam is done talking. "...Made you paranoid."

He stares, stuck in unsureness. Sure, it looks and sounds like his brother, but he knows that doesn't necessarily mean anything. He'd been pretty damn sure before.

Sam's free hand flops toward the discarded knife. "It's silver, Dean."

He squats and grabs the knife, then moves to crouch in front of maybe-Sam. This must be the knife he tried to gut Sam with earlier, right? Everything's a little syrupy.

"Dean." Sam's gestures his arm out toward Dean.

Maybe he already swiped Sam with this knife, but he doesn't know if his skin burned, doesn't know for sure if this is _(one hundred percent, pure)_ Sam. He hates drawing the knife shallowly across the outstretched wrist, but it's really not in question. This is hunter standard practice. He's gotta check.

Sam grunts quietly, but there's no unholy yell of pain or sizzle of skin. Sam's arm pulls back, and Dean jolts, but then the palm goes up placatingly before going to tug down the neck of Sam's shirt, revealing a whole, intact, anti-possession tattoo. "It's me, dude," Sam says in between huffs of breath.

Then that means — "Crap, Sammy." His hands are on Sam, levering him down to lie flat on his back, moving Sam's hand away, checking the wound in his side; nasty, blood-red, but not too deep.

He sees his flannel discarded in the dirt a couple feet away, next to a scattered pile of hefty lore books. He leans over, fingers stretching, extending, until his finger hooks around the material then he drags it back to Sam, pressing it up against the the cut. His brother groans and bucks underneath the pressure until Dean finally ties it off.

"It's alright. Easy, Sammy. It's okay," he mutters, in contrast to this screwed up situation.

Sam'll live, no thanks to Dean, but he's gotta get his brother out of the middle of friggin nowhere. Hefting his brother up and pulling Sam's arm across his shoulder tilts the world a bit, and he's probably gonna need some electrolytes after that blood donation. Through the walk to the car, Sam's huffing and puffing like he's the friggin big bad wolf out of that stupid stolen library book he used to beg Dean over and over to read, but his shaky legs hold his weight okay, so Dean counts it as a sort of win.

There needs to be something about this that isn't a loss.

He eases Sam into the passenger side, before grabbing the painkillers from the glove compartment. "Here ya go," he says, dropping a couple pills into Sam's outstretched hand and pressing a water bottle into the other.

He nearly leaves the stupid books behind, but Sam's geek brain would probably kill him later. He lugs the volumes up, leaving dust clouds in his wake. He tries not to look at the jar stained blood-red, nearly empty. His arms itch.

He fumbles at the door, trying to open it while not dropping any books, more because he doesn't feel like taking a header when he bends down to pick them up than because he's worried about them getting beat up or whatever. Eventually he manages the door and drops the books in the seat.

"You alright?" Sam asks as he slides into the driver's seat, and it's kind of a relief that he hasn't passed out yet and is still with it enough to be worrying about Dean, the big girl.

"Peachy," he replies, threading a bandana around the twin cuts on his wrist.

A water bottle's waved in front of his face. "I'm fine," he says, but Sam gives him a really impressive bitch face all things considering and Dean relents. He really shouldn't drive running on empty, anyway.

After the water, Sam hands him a granola bar. "This too."

"Dude, fruit and nut? This what you picked up in Cali?" He ribs, more to see the tension ease in Sam's shoulders than because he feels like it.

He's got a mouthful of granola bar when Sam decides they better talk about things, because of course, he's Sam.

"I'm sorry, Dean. I should've caught it faster." Sam's quiet and he doesn't know if it's guilt or pain. "I hated to drain you, but… And I was stupid with that first jar. Should've only taken one."

Granola's friggin hard to swallow quickly and Dean's throat is about as dry as the air outside. "Dude, I'm the one who attacked you and dumped it. And if anyone's apologizing, it's me. You were trying to help me. I tried to friggin gut you." Leave it to Sam to feel guilty over trying to save Dean. "If I'd hit a little higher…"

"Dean, stop. I'm okay. It wasn't your fault, man. That was all the spell." Dean might be a little more on board with that if Sam's eyes weren't currently glazed over. "Besides, I should've been more careful."

"Dude, no way—"

"Fine, but if I don't get to apologize," a pause to wheeze. "You don't either." Sam's way too effective at delivering ultimatums for a guy who's probably going to pass out any second.

Dean breathes out. "Okay, yeah. Fine." If dropping this is gonna give the kid peace of mind, well, whatever. He owes Sam that much. He thumps his hand against Sam's leg. "Now get some rest, Sasquatch. I'm gonna get us back to civilization."

Sam nods, eyelids dragging as his body leans over into the car door.

As the engine turns over, Dean eyes all the dust smeared across the windshield and hood. His baby's really gonna need a wash after this. He drives, watching blurs of empty muted blue sky, green-grey scrub, and blood-red on his arms and little brother.


End file.
